Young Writers Society

Everyone in the room was shocked. SECBOTs couldn't do that. It was impossible. There was specific programming to prevent this kind of thing from happening. Everyone sat back for a moment, visibly stunned. Alex stared at them, almost almost with a slight air of amusement, though it wasn't capable of emotions or expressions.

"You are surprised at this? I couldn't fathom why." it said. "You programmed me to do this."

"No we damn well haven't!" shouted the small, rodent-like Company official. "Strike that from the record!" he said, turning to the stenographer in the corner. "Company procedure strictly relies on non-lethal measures as much as possible to subdue attackers. Without it we'd be buried in lawsuits." he shook his head, bewildered. "Commodore, the Company would consider it a great service if news of these events did not travel far. Simply to the families of the victims along with some sort of generous recompense." he turned back to Alex. "Why would you kill two men? That is something  we must know."

"They presented a danger to F.M.E. Buck." Ed looked at Alex, bewilderment across his face.

"How? he asked.

"Buck, it is not your place to question it. Sile-" started the Company man.

"S.M.E Lugton was preparing to drop a set of tools. The result could have been life threatening. He needed to be subdued. Archibald Tenner was going to speak to F.M.E. Buck and slander his image for a perceived crime. A threat to his career. John Harold had the same intention. All of these men presented threats to F.M.E. Buck and needed to be stopped." The Company man was dumbfounded.

"While they could be said to have represented a threat to Buck, why did you violate the Non-Lethal Protocol?"

"I shall run a quick diagnostic." If it was possible,  it's vision panel seemed to glaze over, similar to someone gone too far into a daydream. A few tense minutes proceeded. Everyone was subconsciously leaning forward in their seats when Alex returned. "My system indicates a programming error."

"Impossible!" shouted the Company rep. "Company robots are made impeccably. They do not fail."

"The issue appears to have been created only a year ago." Ed went white. That was when he had made modifications to Alex to make it more personable. "It seems to be connected to a larger new set of code." It seemed to squint and lean forward. "Personality modifications." All eyes turned to Ed.

"So..." said the Company rep, menacingly, almost as though he was enjoying the process. "You felt that you could modify with a SECBOT with no ill consequences? Or did you intend for this to happen?" Ed swallowed hard.

"Honestly, I was just trying to make it more personable, friendlier."

"I see." said the man. He paused for a moment. "The Company has decided to relieve your of your engineering position." Ed put his head in his hands. The rep turned to the Commodore. "I shall leave the rest of the punishment up to you, however, it must be approved by me."

"I really couldn't do anything about it sir. It's not my issue anymore. Far as I'm concerned, it's your job to settle this." he responded, leaning back in his chair, the matter finalized in his eyes.

"Fine." he snapped, "Well, as a baseline, G-38-7 will have to be destroyed. And then we'll-"

"No." said Ed, lifting his head up from his hands. The man turned to him, a scowl on his face.

"Buck, that is the second time you've interrupted me. You shall not do it-"

"You're not scrapping Alex." he said. "You just can't I've known he-" he faltered for a moment, unsure of himself. The moment passed and he continued; "I've known it for two years. I've grown accustomed to it. You're not destroying it." he said, a finality in his tone.

"Buck, this SECBOT killed two men, and brutally attacked another; your best friend I might add. It is a danger to those around it and must be destroyed. Not to mention the fact that the families of these men will want the bot destroyed. That is the end of it."

"But if you would just--" Ed began.

"Goddamnit Buck! That is enough! This bot will be destroyed and you will most likely be jailed. Return to your quarters."

"You don't have that authority over me you pompous, servile, asshole!" shouted Ed, rising from his seat.

"I damn well do! Get back to your quarters before I bring you up on insubordination charges as well as tampering with--" Ed broke. He cut the man off for a third time. Not with words, but with a sharp right hook to the jaw that sent the man sprawling on the ground. The Commodore and chief justice rose from their seats and the Commodore lunged at him, restraining him as the chief justice called in security officers form outside. Two rushed in, and grabbed Ed under the shoulders and feet, dragging him out of the room and back down the hall to his quarters. They threw him into the room and shut and locked the door behind him. He heard the sounds of one man going back down the hall. They had stationed a guard just outside his door. He got up from the floor and rolled over into his bunk. He ran his hands through his hair, worrying about what was to come. He was locked in his dorm. He couldn't do anything to save Alex. The helplessness washed over him. He reached under his bunk again, but remembered the fact that his emergency booze was gone. He got up from his bunk, determined to do something useful. He looked around the dorm and his eyes lit upon the handle of his F-6, peeking out of a drawer in the wall. He pulled it out and looked at it. A thought entered his head. He pointed it at the doorknob and pulled the trigger three times. Nothing. He muttered some profanities under his breath. Blast-resistant, of course. He spent the next hour or so cleaning the gun, even though it didn't need it at all. He went to put it back in the drawer, but paused for a moment. He reconsidered. If they were going to imprison him, he was going to have his most valued possession by his side while they did it. It didn't amount to much, but it gave him just the slightest sense of control. Just as he was beginning to feel like he could do something, he heard the sounds of the destructive charge firing. He collapsed onto his bunk and began to weep.

******

Ed rolled around on his bed for what seemed like the millionth time. He had been lying down for the past five hours when he heard the sounds of voices outside. One of them sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. The voices grew louder. The people outside were getting mad. It came to a head. Ed heard a thunk and a dazed grunt, then the sound of a body falling to the ground. A pause. Then the door clicked and hissed open. There, framed in the doorway, was Dave. He held a bloody pipe wrench in his right hand and leaned against the doorframe. He had medical gauze wrapped around his head and was wearing a hospital gown. Two feet stuck out behind him from the wall.

"Hey Ed." he said, casually as though he were meeting Ed for a cup of coffee. "My ass is cold so could we hurry this along?" he said, a mock annoyed expression on his face.

"Dave," said Ed, "What in the hell are you doing here?" Dave bowed low, using the pipe wrench as his "hat."

"Why, I am your knight in shining armor, of course. I'm here to bust you out. I don't know where we're gonna go, but it's for damn sure not here. Come on." he said, motioning with the wrench. Ed lifted himself from the bed, quickly packing his bag. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if this was a horrible idea. Then he realized that there was nothing left for him here. Alex was already dea- He sat bolt upright. A thought occurred to him. He shouldered his pack and turned to Dave."One thing we need to do first."

******

Arthur Rutherford was having a bad day. He had overslept, he had missed dinner, and now he had the graveyard shift for garbage watch. It couldn't get much worse. And then Dave's pipe wrench alighted on the back of his head. He crumpled to the ground, his life saved by the thick security helmet he was wearing. But he would still not rise for a few hours. Ed bent down and picked up his security badge. He waved it in front of the panel next to the door and it slid open. He turned to Dave. "Go get a gurney from the infirmary as well as a real big sheet. We're gonna need em'." He bent down and dragged Arthur into the garbage room, sealed the door, swapped clothes with him, and assumed Arthur's position in front of the door. The only thing that could give him away would be the F-6 strapped to his hip. He took the stun rifle from Arthur as well, and sealed the door behind himself. And so began the wait.

*******

Dave showed up a half hour later with a gurney and what appeared to be meters of white cloth used to cover corpses. He was still wearing the hospital gown and carrying the wrench. Ed looked at him, opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, realizing there was absolutely no point. Dave grinned almost manically at him. "Hmm? Were you going to say something?"

"No Dave, no I was not."

"That's what I thought. Now, go do whatever the hell we came here for." He shooed him away, almost like an annoyed mother. Ed opened the garbage room's door again and walked inside. He looked around, the roar of the nearby incinerator vent worried him. If they had already destroyed it completely...no. He couldn't think like that. He walked farther into the room, the pieces of scrap and refuse increasing  in size the farther back he went. He was almost to the back of the room. No sign of it. He looked at the last shelf. It was nowhere to be found. He had known to expect this. But it still hit him hard. He fell to his knees. Strangely fortuitous that he reacted in that way. His left knee happened to fall onto a slight depression in the floor. He heard a slight click. Then the sound of a door opening. He lifted his head. To his left, there was now a room in the wall. Inside, sitting directly in the center of the room amongst other dangerous and valuable things, was exactly what he was looking for. He bolted in the room and hugged it to his chest. "Alex" he breathed, "I thought I lost you" 

He picked it up and heaved it out of the room and laid it on the supply rack underneath the gurney. He pushed it to start to leave, but then another thought occurred to him. He went back into the garbage room, and then into the smaller room, and looked around. "Well" he thought to himself, "I'm already guilty of tampering, insubordination, theft, and accessory to assault. What could this hurt?" He lifted a Austin & Schmidt 570nm concentrated pulse rifle off a shelf. A prized possession to anyone. He ran his hands reverently over the shiny rubber-covered plastic stock and the gleaming steel barrel. The AS 570 had been outlawed and confiscated by the Federation after the Gebanth Shooting on Anthar 4, but he knew that the gun wasn't at fault for that Reyow's transgression. It seemed a crime to him to leave it behind. His mind was made up. He plucked a scope off the shelf as well and darted from the room. He quickly, but carefully, put the AS 570 on the rack next to Alex and Rutherford's stun rifle and let Dave hop on the gurney. He unholstered his F-6 and concealed it underneath the sheet along with Dave. He began to push the gurney in the direction of the spaceport. A problem in this plan was that the spaceport was on the complete opposite side of the colony from the morgue. 

He made it  a few dozen meters when a buzzing came in his ear. He answered the message and listened for a few minutes. "Shit. Dave?

"Mmhm?" came the answer fro the sheet.

"We have a rather massive problem."

"And just what might that be?" he said, with the tone of someone asking a waiter what was wrong with the soup of the day.

"Rutherford's shift ended an hour ago. He was supposed to have been relieved five minutes ago. And now he's been reported missing."

"Shit indeed." Ed started a slow jog with the gurney as the shouts of the security officers started from behind him.

******

The Commodore was a simple man. He had been born to a simple life. His father would go to work in a foundry every morning while his mother took care of him. And when he came back, his mother would go off to her relatively mediocre job as Company middle management. No complications. No mess. This was how he ran his life. He had applied himself well in school and had gotten good grades. These had led him to a Federation Navy officer training course, which had led him to becoming an ensign on a small patrol schooner. From there he had become a lieutenant junior grade, then a lieutenant commander, and shortly the second in command. He had risen quickly, jumping ships and ranks with the agility and grace of a Thompson's gazelle. All the work and discipline had led him here: a Commodore before he was fifty (though not by much). An accomplishment rivaled by no one. All this effort, hard work discipline, and achievement had led him to more than that. It had led him to a damn mess. SECBOTs were killing people, his colonists were striking company representatives and tampering with the aforementioned SECBOTs, and now, one of his security officers had gone missing while the murderous SECBOT had been destroyed. And now, he was getting reports of the confiscated AS 570 being stolen, as well as the remains of the SECBOT. And now, a rogue security officer as well as an injured man, trading stun blasts with the security force. There was another one informing him of their movements. The rogue and his companion retreating towards the spaceport. And another saying a confirmed hit to the head that failed to stun him. Another saying his vision was most definitely obscured from soot. Another saying his helmet was being removed. Another saying that he had been identified as...

*******

Edward Buck did not enjoy being shot in the head. What he enjoyed even less was removing the helmet that had protected his and Arthur Rutherford's head so much. But it was a necessity. He couldn't see and it was a certainty that he would be shot again if he didn't remove it. He took it off and hurled it down the hall at the four security officers there. He and Dave were crouched behind the gurney, mere meters from the airlock to the spaceport. The only problem being that they had been forced to retreat too much. The gurney was now between them and the guards, but it was also between them and the airlock. He and Dave had been sporadically aiming laser pulses down the corridor hoping to hit something, anything. The closest they had come was destroying one of the rifles the officers had, forcing him to switch to his sidearm. The officers had called in reinforcements and they would be here within five minutes. They had one option, suicidal though it was. He turned to Dave and told him to start inching the gurney forward. They started slow at first, but then their adrenaline kicked  in massively, urging them on faster and faster. The airlock was approaching fast. The shots from down the hall were increasing in intensity. Some blasted the rails and bed of the gurney, while others went through the sheet, leaving glowing burn marks. They had switched to killing shots. The door was within five feet. Now four feet. More shots through the sheet. Now three. Some through the bed and over their heads now. Two. The shots came like machine gun fire. One. They pushed through the airlock doors and into the lock. On final shot came through the closing doors and grazed Ed's hair. He sat down hard on the ground. Dave leapt to his feet and started taking two spacesuits off the wall. He tossed one to Ed.

"Show's  not over yet pal, we still got the final act." he said, pulling his spacesuit on over the medical attire. He and Ed paused for a moment in the airlock, catching their breath. The sounds of someone trying to open the door scared it out of them again. After a hurried conversation, Ed and Dave set their blasters to stun, and aimed them at the door. The sounds stopped. A pause. The two men stared at the door, uncertainly. And then the spiral sections whirred open, revealing four armed security officers. They never stood a chance. Ed and Dave let loose with all they had, pummeling the men with laser fire from the AS 570, the F-6, and the stun rifle, physically pushing two men back across the hall. They shoved the two men in the airlock outside and closed and locked the door. They composed themselves, finished gearing up, and took their final plunge. The opposite door whirred open.

******

The guards at the spaceport weren't used to actually doing anything. Nobody ever had things to do at the spaceport so the guards were lax. Spaceport guard was generally considered a cushy job where you could just coast through six hours of watch and then find yourself having a drink at the canteen. So, naturally, it was a bit of a shock to the guards when a hail of laser fire rained down on them, taking out two of the six immediately. Soon after, another two fell but the last two had put the pieces together and had taken covered positions.Dave and Ed were still using the gurney as a portable shield. Freedom lay not one hundred feet away. Their way was barred by two men. Ed started to worry again. They couldn't lose now. Their crimes would put them away for life. Ed might be spared by his generous military record, but Dave would not be so lucky. They were trapped. The officers would soon close in behind them and the spaceport guard could just wait them out. It was hopeless.

"Ho there!" came a cry from the end of the spaceport. "Ho there!" it came again. Ed peeked over the  top of the gurney. 

"I'm going space crazy." he muttered to himself. Across the tarmac, a white strip of cloth was waving, torn from the Federation flag. The man waving it stood up. He approached Dave and Ed's position. His comrade followed close behind. Ed motioned for Dave to take an offensive position. Dave took the AS 570 from Ed and leveled it against the guards, supporting it on the gurney. Ed holstered his F-6 and went out to meet the guards. They met in the middle of the tarmac. A moment passed where they simply stared at each other through their darkened optical shield. Then the guard stepped out of the way, motioning for Ed to proceed. Ed looked at him, a question so obvious he didn't even need to raise the shield on his suit. The guard did. Upon his left cheek lay a symbol. It was two crossed bullets. Old ones from before the Technological Revolution, fast moving copper teardrops powered by gunpowder. It was the symbol of the F.P.U, the people who had fought against the Federation influence. Widely known as troublemakers, saboteurs, and rebels, they were greatly stigmatized by the Federation, and those who had received the mark often had difficulty finding work on any Federation planet. And it was a mark Ed just so happened to bear on his left shoulder blade. The man motioned for him to go towards the ships. Then he and his comrade leveled their rifles at each other and simultaneously stunned themselves.

Ed and Dave set their sights on a Condor class transport ship. The name was very deceiving. Condors were boxy and slow. They were normally used as automated supply ships in between nearby planets. The ones sent to Decken had been modified slightly to include faster-than-light travel so that they could make the trip in less than a year. Condors had pointed wings on top of them, with the engines attached to the middle of them, to aid in flying in-atmosphere, but that was the closest they got to agility. They were shaped like rounded trapezoids. The front was slanted downward with the cockpit at the top of the slant, almost like the steam engines' cow catchers from centuries ago mixed with the Old Wars bombers. The ship had a cargo door at the back, forcing the back to slant upward. The rest of the ship was rounded at the top, swooping down straight sides, to where it slanted just like the cargo door and where the landing gear protruded, and to the flat belly of the ship, where the three ground thrusters were mounted. It was extremely unwieldy to fly and was slow to take off. It was the worst getaway vehicle in the known universe. The interior was divided into two sections, each of these divided into another two sections. The front of the ship was divided into a top and bottom. The top was the cockpit and could be manned by one person. Below that through a hatch and ladder, was the engine room. While it didn't contain any engines, it did have all the necessary gauges and measures needed to maintain them. These two rooms took up about ten percent of the total ship. Behind them were the cargo bay and the living space. Underneath the living space was a large, versatile cargo hold. It was long and slightly thin. At the very back sat the massive cargo door. The living space was comprised of sleeping cylinders inset in the walls, lockers for personal effects, and several tables in the middle of the room. The hatch to the ship was located in the small passageway in between the cockpit and living space.

Ed barreled through the door with Dave in tow. He wheeled the gurney into the living space, unloading the items on it into a locker. He left it rolling around and went to join Dave in the cockpit. Dave was already flipping dials and levers and preparing the ship for takeoff. Ed looked at him incredulously. "You know how to fly one of these things?" Dave's head swiveled around.

"HELL NO!!" The manic grin flashed again as he gunned the throttle and the Condor rose off the ground.